No doubt this news will be met with ferocious attacks from the generally public, but it looks like internet users in the UK could soon see themselves banned from the internet for illegal film and music downloads if new government proposals are approved. Internet service providers will be legally required to enforce a “three-strikes” system – strike one means an email from the ISP, strike two means a suspension and strike three a ban. Under the proposals ISPs would be prosecuted for failing to enforce the new rules and suspected customers details could be made available to the courts. The government is yet to decide whether information on offenders will be shared between ISPs, but if so it could make it much more difficult to find a new ISP once you have been banned. This move comes as a result of six million UK broadband users downloading files illegally each year, with the proposals being officially unveiled next week.

This sounds like knee-jerk legislation that's just asking to go wrong.

How can such a system be managed? There is no way some "person" is going to go and look at what an individuals activity has been... it will be an automated system.... which is bound to make mistakes.

Telcos/ISP have notoriously terrible service.... just imagine getting such a "warning", or indeed a suspension, and not being able to get it remedied, wasting HOURS in pay-per.minute phone lines to speak to someone with no authority to fix it. It took me 3 YEARS, yes, three years, for my telco just to fix a spelling mistake on the account name.

What the government doesnt get, we dont want to pay your wages!, all of our CD's/DVD's/Blu ray/HDDVD / ANYTHING IN ENGLAND is way to expensive, they even have to add 17.5% VAT onto everything just so they make some profit on all this stuff....

This is probably why most people cannot be ****ed to go out and buy a DVD, it costs way to much...

Why dont they just remove the VAT, remove DRM from everything, Allow us to RIP cd's to our "portable devices" (The bullet CD i recently bought said it "allows" copying to portable devices, most say that they do not) and stop being greedy twats.

Its just another way to make people go out and buy DVD's etc, so they can make profit...

That just outright sux, but if this had been in the U.S., I am SURE we already would have had the typical
"gust goes to show you how STUPID Americans are" or " look how small minded those damn Americans are" responses on the board by now.

Well, if you're white, male, aged 18-45, Protestant, have a sizable amount of disposable income, and like constant jingoistic patriotism bombarding you from every direction, then sure -- come on over.

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Or, if you have no problem living in the rural areas where the cost of living is easily maintained, like to be able to own guns and actually use them in self defense without being labelled a criminal, be able to just about anything you want on your own property, then come on over.

I'm sure some offshore ISP would be interested to take those 6 milion users Don't just know would it be possible, who owns the phone lines and would they allow them to be rented.

"Six million broadband users are estimated to download files illegally every year in this country in a practice that music and film companies claim is costing them billions of pounds in lost revenue annually."

Those claims are always as funny. People wouldn't buy everything they download, even if it was almost free (which is not even close). Some people have so many MP3's that it would take then months to listen straight through without any sleep. Surely everyone who owns 1000 albums in MP3's would go and fill their wall instantly, not eat or pay bills.

Those numbers are only true if stuff is free and even that would make it less appealing and again the numbers lie. Didn't RIAA want something like $100,000 for one song in some recent news, when the real worth is $1. That's the same as I'd say 'I'm the greatest lover of all time' and still lying less

Record companies, and the governments they are pressuring, are just getting desperate. Wasn't there a news article about how one German company recently said, "Eff this, you guys can just have our stuff," and uploaded everything onto Pirate Bay?

There either has to be ridiculously dramatic action like this, which is unjust, stupid, short-sighted, and ill-conceived, or they just have to throw their hands up in the air.